A Legacy of Burnt Sienna
by Jonathan Cena OFFICIAL
Summary: Kanto law states that all citizens are legally treated as ten years of age until becoming a champion of any region at least once in their life. Aero, who recently moved to Pallet from the Hoenn region, has never been all that interested in pokémon, but now they must embark on their very first pokémon adventure, if only so that they're legally allowed to buy cigarettes again.
1. Chapter 0

**A/N: I see the reviews left on this story as part of the experience. If you plan on leaving one, please try to keep it in the spirit of things. I can't really force you to, but I'd appreciate it. Thank you.  
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**CH00 – It's like Chapter 1 but 0 instead**

A human aged somewhere in the late teens pulled their body up into a sitting position in bed with the posture of an unfurled paperclip that someone beat to death with a hammer. Their hair was a red amalgamation of bed-headed horror that traveled down the length of their neck and stopped in a frayed mess right at the shoulders. Rays of luminous sunlight peeked in between homely curtains hanging from a window on the far wall of the room, but it was enough to irritate their emerald eyes. They groaned in a way reminiscent of the sound you'd get from a cat stuck in slow motion as you beat it with a frying pan. Eventually the author had a stroke due to shitty, forced purple prose overdose and we had to put writing on hiatus until we could replace them with someone who isn't retarded.

****Approximately two years later****

The bedroom was still largely unfurnished, with unopened cardboard boxes occupying most of the occupied space on the floor. There was a digital clock by the bed, which was propped up on one of the boxes as a makeshift table and read 9:30. Which meant it was anywhere from 8:30 to 10:30 in the morning, because the clock was an hour off and in which direction was a mystery lost to age and a significant lack of giving a shit.

At that exact moment, faint sounds were heard from somewhere downstairs.

**thud thud**

Followed by not so faint screaming...

"AERO! SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOOOOOORRRRRRRR!"

**thud thud**

Aero, our newly named protagonist, rubbed the sleep from their eyes, grumbling to themselves during the entire process. "You're already downstairs, get the friggin' door yourself..." Aero forced their body to crawl out of bed and got to their feet. They haphazardly grabbed clothes out of another partially open box on the floor and began dressing as elegantly as someone half-asleep possibly can (i.e., not very).

**thud thud**

"AEROOOOO! ANSWER THE DOOR!"

"I'm working on it, chill out!" Aero shouted down the stairs in reply, while dancing their way into a pair of naturally worn jeans. They grabbed a charcoal black sport jacket hanging haphazardly on one of the bed posts and slipped it over the first shirt they had yanked out of the box of clothes first, namely one that was a tasteful shade of too-fucking-bright-green, before attempting to descend to the ground floor of their modest new home.

This was followed by crashing sounds and a muffled swear or twenty, as Aero tripped on an empty glass bottle laying on the stairs and landed ass-first on the tiled floor of the kitchen. "...Ow."

**thud thud thud thud**

"Stop fucking around on the floor and answer the goddamn door!"

Aero's mother, the source of all the wailing, was also in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table face-down with an empty wine bottle clenched in her hand. Aero kicked another bottle, laying on the floor near their feet, out of the way. "Are you at it already? It's like nine-thirty in the morning...probably."

"Just answer the door before my head splits in two!"

"Whatever!" Aero groggily navigated over to the front door. They didn't really want a mother with two heads. There was enough trouble dealing with one of them.

**thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud**

Aero's hungover mother whimpered in agony against the kitchen table.

"Okay, you can stop knocking now. Someone's at the door, I get it." Aero grabbed the door knob, turned it, and pulled the door open. On the other side was an elderly man with an impeccably squared head, a very unfashionable haircut, and wearing a white lab-coat that extended down to his knees. He held his hand up in the universal sign for "hello." Either that or it was the universal sign for "I'm going to grope you." It's hard to tell sometimes.

Aero took a step backwards. "What the fuck, don't grope me dude, my mom is over there."

"What in the world are you talking about? I was waving hello."

"Oh, sorry...It's hard to tell sometimes."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it. What do you want?"

The elderly man in the lab coat cleared his throat and quickly re-composed himself. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Professor Samuel Oak. I live nearby."

"Okay? What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

Aero looked over at the woman at the kitchen table face-down in a puddle of her own vomit and drool. "Mom, some old guy wants to come into the hou- oh." Aero turned their head back to Oak, who was still waiting outside. "She passed out again, so it's probably fine." Aero stepped back from the doorway, allowing the professor entry. Oak was a little apprehensive, but decided to enter the house anyway because that was why he came here in the first place and it would be kind of stupid not to right after asking for permission. Aero shut the door behind him. "You can sit at the table, I guess. I'd make you coffee, but mom filled the coffee pot with bourbon and I don't know what else to do with it."

"Ermmm...thanks. No coffee is fine." Oak decided it best to take the seat furthest from the unconscious woman sprawled over the table, in a spot that her bodily fluids hadn't already conquered in the name of alcoholism. "You must be Aero, correct? You and your...mother," Oak motioned towards the bodily lump on the other side of the table, "moved to Pallet Town from the Hoenn region just recently."

Aero shoved their mother's body out of the way and sat down across from Oak. "Yeah, that's right. What about it?"

"Well...how do I put this?" Oak rubbed his chin in contemplation for about two seconds, before shrugging and going for the tried and true 'oh well, screw it' method of delivery. "Well, how old are you?"

Aero cocked an eyebrow. "Nineteen, why?"

"Okay...well you're ten now."

Aero would have cocked an eyebrow, but that already happened a few moments ago, and if it happened again Aero's eyebrows would be floating in empty air, which wouldn't make any sense. "...What?"

"Both of you moved to and became legal citizens of the Kanto region, so now you're ten." Oak explained.

"Oh, okay..." Aero wasn't sure how to follow that. "What?"

"Look. You never completed a Pokémon League challenge when you were younger, right?"

Aero wasn't sure why this was relevant to anything, but answered anyway. "I don't have any interest in that kind of thing..."

"I see...well in Kanto, the law says you're legally ten years old until you successfully become a champion in any region at least once in your life."

Aero's mouth hung open for a moment to respond, but then it closed again before saying anything. Aero stayed quiet for another moment, before eventually just responding with "What?" again.

"It's true. You're legally ten years old as a citizen of Kanto now because you've never gone on a pokémon journey while you were in Hoenn."

Aero leapt up from the chair. "What the fuck kind of retarded law is that?!"

Oak shrugged. "I'm a professor, not a politician."

"So I'm fucking ten now?!"

"Yeah, you're fucking ten."

"And if I want to be legally not-fucking-ten again, I'll have to become the champion of Kanto?"

"Well, any region is fine, but we're already in Kanto so that would be most convenient, yes..."

Aero fell back into the seat with a muffled thud. "Holy damn, I think I hate this place."

"I hear that a lot. If it's any consolation, my grandson is in the same boat you are right now...My younger, less talented grandson that I don't like to tell people about. They're both kind of retarded, but at least Blue has a little talent..." Oak rubbed his chin again because that's what people in lab coats do when they're trying too hard to look smart. "Blue is gay as hell though, so I worry about my family's next generation because my other grandson sure as shit is never getting laid..."

"I don't know who that is, why you have a grandson named after a color, or why I needed to know his sexual preferences, but thanks for sharing I guess..." Aero paused for a moment. "ANYWAY, why the hell am I only being informed of this stupid law now, and by some old guy in a lab coat?"

Oak brightened a bit at the brief opportunity to talk about how important he is, despite the jab at his age, since nobody seemed to care about anything he did anymore outside of his stupid radio show. And if he was being honest, everyone tuned in to that for Mary instead of him. And only for ASMR reasons, since if anyone really wanted to know where to find a particular pokémon nowadays, they just looked it up on the internet. "I'm in charge of seeing off all new trainers of Pallet Town, on top of my usual research as an esteemed pokémon professor. I got a fax about you the other day, so I'm here to help you start your very first pokémon journey."

"I'm surprised that you'd take time away from your research to do that. What's the catch?"

"If I don't do it the government will cut my funding."

"Huh, fair enough. I don't have any pokémon though."

"I figured you didn't have any, but that's okay. Part of my job is issuing fledgling trainers their first partner. My lab is just down the street...the only street, so you can stop by later today," Oak turned his gaze to Aero's dysfunctional parent, who was still out cold. "...after your mother regains consciousness and you explain things to her of course. Take your time." Oak stood up from the table and gave a curt nod. "I'll be heading out now. See you later."

Aero nodded back in the way people do when they really don't want to nod back but have to do it anyway. "Sure. Later. After I shoot myself in the face."

Oak threw open the front door and let himself out in a hurry, but only because he was getting tired of the distinctive scent of cheap wine and poor life decisions. "I sure am glad I decided to become a pokémon scientist instead of...whatever the hell that kid's mother is supposed to be."

Meanwhile back at the house, Aero was still sitting at the kitchen table in the same spot, trying to come to terms with what they were just told.

"I can't believe this. People still use fax machines?!"


	2. Chapter 1

**CH01 – All boys leave home someday, it said so on TV**

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This is the part of the story detailing the time between Oak's departure and Aero's mother waking up from an alcohol induced coma. But nothing especially important happened so there's nothing to read. Feel free to make up your own story about how Aero passed the time and paste it here, and then I'll brag about reader interactivity in the summary or something (except not really because I hit the word count already).

* * *

Eventually Aero's mother regained consciousness and she cashed in on a little nugget of dignity that she hid away for a rainy day. Aero explained the situation to her off-screen somewhere so I wouldn't have to write about it (see above). Upon hearing that her child was embarking on their very own pokémon adventure and finally getting out of the goddamn house for a change, Aero's mother perked up considerably, despite the hangover.

As it stood, Aero was currently waiting for their mom of the year to finish digging through a pile of unpacked boxes in the closet of the only bedroom in the house after she said to "hold on a sec." Aero thought she was taking things rather well, all things considering, but was getting tired of dealing with unpacked boxes so many times in the span of maybe an hour or two.

"Ah, I found what I was looking for!" Aero's mom poked her head out of the closet's entrance. She said, "Here, hold on to this," before tossing a metallic lump at her child, who jumped back at the unexpected projectile aimed in their general direction. Aero managed to grab it before they got clocked in the face, albeit upside down and in the most unfortunate way possible. Aero's mother returned to rummaging around her slightly less packed box.

Aero stared down the barrel they were inadvertently pointing at their own face. It was a semi-automatic pistol, black in color with "HK45" written along the side. The HK stood for 'H _ _ _ _ _ _ & K _ _ _' **(READER INTERACTIVITY OPPORTUNITY: fill in the name yourself! Please don't use something that will get me sued, thanks)**. It already had a magazine jammed into it. Aero was thankful that the safety was still engaged or said adventure would have come to an abrupt end before it even started, if only by accident. There's a joke in here somewhere about Aero talking about shooting themselves in the face last chapter, but you'll have to write it yourself. Do so here: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. I get full credit for your idea, but only if it was actually funny.

"You're giving me a gun?"

Aero's mother answered from the closet. "Yeah, it's my old buddy from back when I still traveled...Oh, there's the spare mags!" She grabbed a couple of .45 box magazines and threw them over her shoulder blindly. "You still remember how to shoot right?"

Aero juggled a potentially illegal firearm into their other hand in an attempt to catch the new objects out of the air before they hit the ground. "Probably? It's been a while though. What the hell does a pokémon trainer need a gun for?"

"Hey, traveling the wilderness is dangerous business! You'll be glad to have it if you run into a crime syndicate in a cave or something...Here, take this too." Aero's mom flung a survival knife in a protective sheathe over her shoulder next.

Aero caught it via mouth before it stabbed them in the face. The magazines got jammed into a jacket pocket temporarily, and the knife was moved into the now freed up hand, seeing as it's hard to speak with a leather-wrapped blade in your mouth. "Don't you think you're going a little overboard here? If ten year olds are doing this stuff, it can't be that dangerous..." Aero was still holding the pistol in the other hand, because they didn't know what to do with it yet.

"Nonsense! You can never be too prepared when you're heading out into the wide world alone. I can't tell you how many times I danced with death during my travels. I had to fight off an enraged charizard with nothing but that knife before. Boy that's a story! I stabbed that fucker's eyes out and put them in a jar as a souvenir. It's in here somewhere..."

"I didn't know you were so hardcore about this stuff...Wait, You don't even have pokémon. When were you a trainer?"

"A trainer? Never. I just traveled a lot when I was younger...they did make me a de-facto champion in Alola though, after I beat all of their totem pokémon in a sumo wrestling tournament. I guess that's a good thing, otherwise we'd both legally be ten now...There's one more thing I wanted to give you yet. Where is it?" Aero's mom felt around the bottom of the box until she found what she was looking for. "Ah, there!" She tossed her child one final parting gift. Aero caught it on their leg, now standing off-kilter on one foot. It was a mundane-looking leather bag.

Aero eyed it up, but no matter how one looked at it, it was just a leather bag. "Is this a potato sack…?"

Aero's mom finally stood up and climbed out of her closet, satisfied with the procured items. "It's a bag of holding! Y'know, like in D&D or whatever, but this one is the real deal instead of a LARP fantasy prop."

Aero stretched the bag open and peered inside of it, but couldn't find the bottom. They decided not to think too hard about it, lest the fabric of reality corrupted in the process. "Do I even want to know where you got something like this from?"

Aero's mother placed a finger against her chin. "If I remember...I won it from a short, bearded guy with an axe in a game of poker one night in some shady tavern. It was a few years before I got pregnant with you and had to settle down."

"Axe like...a guitar?"

"Huh? No, like a battle-axe. Bards are for scrubs." Aero's mother then pointed at the gun still dangling from her child's hand. "There should be a holster for that thing in the bag somewhere. It's an outdated model and there's no quick-sort functionality, but I don't think there's anything else in it right now. Also, don't put living creatures in it; I learned that the hard way..."

Aero decided not to bother asking their mother what the hell she was talking about and instead just tied the bag around a loop in their jeans before then chucking the gun, knife, and extra magazines, that were previously wedged into a jacket pocket, inside of it. Aero figured there would be time to worry about the details later. "Uh-huh...Well, guess I better get going then. That old guy named after a tree told me to stop by before I leave."

"Who?"

"You didn't meet him...you were passed out on the kitchen table."

"Oh, right..." Aero's mother gave a big ol' mom smile, which was rare as of recently since she was usually piss drunk and it's hard to smile when projectile vomit is leaking out of your mouth. "Okay, honey. All boys leave home some day..."

"...That's a little presumptuous isn't it?"

Aero's mother shrugged. "Beats me, I just heard it on TV this morning. All girls leave home some day too, I'd assume. And then you'll get older, and settle down, and get married to an environmental terrorist that cheats on you with younger women..." Her smile was short lived and was quickly replaced with a violent scowl brought on by unhappy memories. "Fuck, I need another drink and I already finished off all of the wine I stole from your stupid fucking father! You think you can run out to Viridian quick and buy me a bottle? There's no liquor store in Pallet. Or any store for that matter...Why did we settle down in Pallet again? This place fuckin' sucks."

"You said it was because the taxes are lower, but I'm not old enough to buy alcohol anymore, remember?"

"What? The drinking age in Kanto is only eighteen. It's very progressive."

"I'm not sure you should be using the word progressive like that, but I'm legally ten now."

"Shit, you're right. This place blows. I knew we should have moved to Johto instead."

"The coffee pot still has that bourbon in it."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that! You're such a good child."

"Yeah sure, let's go with that..." Aero was busy looting a cell phone from it's resting spot next to the alarm clock that wasn't set quite right. "Well see you when I see you, I guess." Aero gave their mother a final half-hearted wave goodbye before stomping back downstairs, making sure to look out for any more empty bottles on the way down, then exited the building through the front door, before heading down the only road in town.


	3. Chapter 2

**CH02 – I'm just going to use this spot to apologize to everyone named Greg**

Aero stood just outside of Oak's pokémon lab, aptly named "Oak's Pokémon Lab". It wasn't particularly difficult to locate, despite not being given directions, due to the fact that it was one of the few actual buildings in town, not to mention that it was the only one that looked even vaguely important enough to bother checking out in the first place. Also, there was a sign outside that said 'OAKS POKEMON LAB' on it in gigantic, bold lettering. That probably helped too. Off to the side was some unassuming bystander who was busy staring at said sign with a look of immense displeasure on his face as he battled with the desire to add an apostrophe to it with a permanent marker, but Aero was trying to ignore his presence completely.

Through one of the windows, there was a man in a lab coat strikingly similar to Oak's arguing with some pretentious ass that looked to be of similar age as Aero. They didn't see Oak at all, but entered the lab anyway because there weren't really any better options at the moment.

* * *

"Look, I know you're excited, but like I said, he's out right now. Why can't you just go do drugs somewhere until he comes back like a regular teen_—_" The researcher was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. It was one of those stupid doors with bells on it. They're very annoying. When he turned to look, he was met with the mildly annoying sight of yet another random teen preventing him from getting his work done. "Ah? I'm pretty busy right now, can I he_—_"

"Who the hell is this dweeb?" The original nuisance butted in, cutting the man's speech off for the second time in approximately five seconds.

Aero looked over their shoulder, then turned back. "I think you're seeing your reflection in the window there, bud."

The other teen took a step forward. "What was that, smart-ass?!"

***AHEM***

The scientist cleared his throat extremely loudly in a vie for attention. "Greg, you know your grandfather doesn't appreciate it when you act like this." He then turned his own attention back to Aero. "Did you need something from the professor?"

Greg, as the other teenager was apparently named, was visibly irritated, but decided to let it go for the moment (but only because he was busy thinking about how cool he was). He was a real piece of work though: heavily groomed hair and a polo shirt with the collar popped in just the right way as to perfectly accentuate how capable he was in the sacred art of being a doofus.

"Yeah, I guess he isn't here?" Aero made a quick survey of the laboratory just to confirm. "He told me to come by when I was ready..."

"Ah yes, he_—_" Once again the scientist found himself being cut off by an outburst from the peanut gallery.

"You have to be kidding me! THIS loser is the other new trainer Gramps mentioned? What a letdown!"

"You're gonna be sayin' _letup _after I start punching your teeth out through the back of your skull, bucko."

"Big words, but my name isn't bucko, _bucko_. Who the fuck wears a lime green t-shirt?"

"Who the fuck pops their collar anymore?"

"Faggot."

"I'm glad I'm more confident in my sexuality than you are..."

"ENOUGH ALREADY!" The aide on duty was starting to get a headache, and was acutely aware of how little he had been able to accomplish today. "This isn't the time or place for you two to be acting like petulant, little children on the playground! Even if you are legally ten. Greg, you should know better by now." He turned to address Aero. "And you, I'd ask that you don't instigate, please."

"Hmph, whatever!" Greg crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side. "I was just expecting a rival worthy of my caliber is all."

The scientist facepalmed and shook his head, but decided to leave it at that. "...Professor Oak stepped out for a few moments and should be back in a little while. If you could come back later, I'm sure he'll be around then. I can't have both of you running around the lab, I'll never get anything done today at all."

"Okay, fair...guess I'll go do drugs somewhere until he comes back like a regular teenager then. Later." Aero turned and headed back out of the lab the way they came.

The scientist looked back at Greg, who was still adamantly rooted in place determined to be a plague on society for as long as he lived. "See, Greg? You should try to be more like that. They set a good example."

"Stuff it, egghead."

* * *

Aero stood outside again, a little way off from the lab, and stretched their arms over their head. "Well now what? I wanted to get this over and done with..." Aero absentmindedly prodded a pebble on the side of the road with their foot for a few moments while staring at the laboratory's sign trying to remember if there was always an apostrophe on it. "Eh, screw it. Guess I'll just leave on my own, and figure it out from there." Aero promptly headed in the direction that didn't require a means of transoceanic travel.

After following the only road in town to it's conclusion, Aero wound up near Pallet's boundary lines. Apparently nobody had the budget to maintain roads in Kanto, because the grass was overgrown to the waist in many places making it practically impossible to avoid wading through even if you wanted to. Since Aero's home region was just as bad, if not worse most of the time, such a thing didn't affect them very much at all and they just curled their hands into their pockets and attempted to plow right through it.

Aero's leg only made it partially beyond the veil of greenery when someone's hand gripped them firmly by the shoulder from behind. "Hold it there! Wild pokémon hide themselves in tall grass like that!"

Aero's eyes darted to where the offending hand was and discovered the good professor himself. Aero's mouth opened to say something, but Oak grabbed their arm and yanked them completely out of the grass before forcefully dragging them all-the-fuck-the-way back down the road towards the laboratory. "Ow! What the hell?! This is assault, let go!" Aero struggled against the elderly professor's kung-fu action grip. Oak was surprisingly strong despite his age, evidently.

"Why do you kids never listen to me? I told you to SEE. ME. AT. MY. LAB. before you left, didn't I?"

"I did, and you weren't there! Why do I need a pokémon from you, anyway?" Aero dug their heels into the ground, but failed to accomplish anything other than to kick up dust.

Oak ignored Aero's pathetic struggles to break free and continued dragging the teen back towards the lab. "What are you going to do without a partner pokémon if you get attacked by a MissingNo or something?"

"Ow! You could be a little more gentle at least...what the fuck is a MissingNo?"

"Hell if I know, but it sounds dangerous." Oak stopped momentarily upon reaching the entrance of his lab, but only long enough to fling open the door. "Okay, in you go!" Oak turned and grabbed Aero with both arms and shoved the trainer-to-be inside.

Due to the force applied, Aero tumbled backwards and fell on the floor for the second time in one day. "...Ow."

"Ha! What the hell kind of faggot-ass entrance was that?" Naturally, Greg and Oak's aide were still in the lab too. Go figure.

Oak entered behind Aero and closed the door while Aero was busy standing back up and flipping Greg the bird. The aide, who was apparently unsuccessful at persuading Greg to leave him alone for two minutes, walked briskly to greet his boss's return. "It's good that you're back, I've been tr_—_"

"Yes, yes, that's nice." Oak picked the aide up by his shoulders and moved the poor researcher to the side with little effort. "Go over there and watch porn or something until I'm done, thanks." After dislocating his aide, he shouldered past Aero and marched over to his grandson. He grabbed a stray clipboard off a desk on the way, and smacked Greg over the head with it.

"YEEEOOOOOWWW!" Greg clutched his head in pain. "What the hell was that for, Gramps?!"

"You know what it was for, you ungrateful little shit! If I hear the word faggot come out of your goddamn mouth one more time, I'll beat your ass so hard that you'll be shitting out of your dick afterwards!" Oak tossed the clipboard aside, since it was finished serving it's primary function as a disciplinary device, and then faux-cleared his throat to make sure the two not-really-children were paying attention to him. Oak gestured to a table nearby that had three pokéballs placed on it as Aero moved to join the two on the other side of the room. "Over there are some random pokémon I pulled out of storage earlier. You can both pick one. I don't care which."

Greg immediately hopped over to the table and shouted "I CALL DIBS!" before snatching up the red and white ball in the middle and holding it triumphantly over his head like a dunce.

Oak wanted to beat his grandson again, and immediately regretted tossing the clipboard so far out of reach. He looked over to gauge Aero's reaction, but they might as well have been in catatonia so he decided to let it go for the time being. Oak turned his attention back to Greg, who was still busy posing with a small capsule device. He became more than a little worried when he saw which pokémon his grandson had chosen. "Now Greg, that's a charmander...it's a flaming lizard..."

"Yes! I want this one."

"It's also a massive pain in the ass to raise. I think someone of your, uh, particular _talent _should choose something else maybe..." Oak motioned to the ball closest to him. "like a bulbasaur. It's a lot more your...skill level."

"What? That name sounds gay as shit," Greg's grandfather gave him the evil eye, but he was too busy acting like a jerk-ass to notice. "I'll stick with the bad-ass fire pokémon."

"Hmm...well okay, some lessons just have to be learned the hard way I guess..." Oak looked at Aero with expectant eyes. "Well then, I suppose you're next."

Aero glanced over at the table which still had two pokéballs remaining on it, but before anything else could occur Greg spun around and grabbed the one Oak had called bulbasaur. "Here, this one is really speaking to me." Greg tossed the pokéball at Aero, who caught it reflexively before it hit them in the face. "And it's saying that it sucks as much ass as you do_—_" Oak couldn't restrain himself and reached over to smack Greg upside the head with the palm of his hand, "OOWWWW!"

"Aero, you don't need to take that one. You can have the squirtle instead if you want it." Oak eyed the remaining pokéball on the table, still undisturbed. "Greg in his infinite impulsivity has set you up to be at the disadvantage, which would have been pretty smart for him if it wasn't by complete dumb luck, but it wouldn't be fair of me if I didn't give you a choice."

"Nah, I don't really care that much." Aero tossed the pokéball, supposedly containing a bulbasaur, up and down idly. "Besides, a disadvantage will just make me look good when I kick your grandson's ass."

Greg took the bait, because how could he resist? "Oh, you did NOT!"

"Pretty sure I did."

"What the fuck makes you think that some absolute loser like you could beat someone like me? My older brother is a gym leader! That's the kind of talent my family has!"

Oak coughed into his hand. "Well that's the kind of talent Blue has anyway..."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?"

Greg pointed at Aero with an over-dramatic snap of his fingers. "Fine then, I'm challenging you right here and right now!"

Oak threw up his arms in exasperation. "I haven't even explained how battling works yet, Greg!"

Oak's grandson was too upset to pay him any attention though and hurled his pokéball out into the middle of the floor. "Go, Charmander!"

The capsule device hit the ground for a moment, bounced into the air, and...fell apart into two halves on the ground. A runny orange-colored liquid splattered out of the orb along the ground, forming a puddle of charmander goo.

The three stared down at the puddle on the floor in dead silence. Greg was the first to break it. "...Why did my charmander turn into orange soda? Was it supposed to do that?"

Oak shook his head slowly with a finger pressed to his forehead. "No Greg, why would you even think that?"

Aero stared at their own pokéball for a few seconds before lobbing it towards the mess already on the floor out of curiosity. As expected, the ball fell apart and green goo leaked out of it. The two liquids ended up mixing together to form an unsavory brownish color.

Oak just sighed. "This is what I get for using the cheap balls, I guess..."


	4. Chapter 3

**CH03 – Let's Go Eevee**

Everyone waited off to the side while the one aide on duty finish mopping up the puddle of brownish pokémon jelly on the floor because Oak told him to.

"So that was a bust, now what?" asked Aero.

Greg fidgeted impatiently. "C'mon, Gramps! You promised you'd give me a pokémon...You don't have to bother finding one for this dweeb though." Aero elbowed him in the side. "Hey! You hit like a girl." Aero elbowed him harder. "Ow! Stop, you fag!"

Greg's grandfather beat him over the head with a newly acquired clipboard he snatched off of a nearby desk. "WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THAT WORD?!"

"DAMNITTTT, THAT HURTS! You said I couldn't say faggot, but you never said I couldn't say fag…"

Oak hit his belligerent grandson again for good measure. "It's the same thing, you idiot. And don't back talk your grandfather like that." He tossed the clipboard away out of habit, and recomposed himself. He immediately decided he needed to stop doing that after it landed somewhere by the one he used earlier.

The aide, completely forgotten, was busy wringing pokémon gravy out of a mop while thinking about how he should have followed his dreams to become an astronaut instead.

Oak stepped over to a cabinet with a big padlock on it. There was a sign posted over it that said DANGER in all capital letters. That probably goes without saying though, because when was the last time you saw a sign that said danger in all lowercase letters? Don't answer that. "If you two could stop badgering each other for two minutes, I could amend this dilemma..." He fished a key ring out of a pocket on his lab coat, spent a few moments looking for the right key, and then took the lock off of the cabinet. Oak proceeded to swing open the cabinet doors slowly and with a cautious deliberation that made the scene a lot more showy than it really needed to be. You can pretend there was dramatic lighting and sound design too if you want, but I'm not going to write about it. "I really didn't want to resort to using these two, but I don't have any other pokémon prepared at the moment..." Inside the cabinet were two fairly normal looking pokémon slavery devices. Very anticlimactic. Oak grabbed both of them, one with each hand, and lifted them out of the cabinet.

Aero was too busy checking out whatever was being displayed on the aide's computer screen, but Greg was visibly excited. "Oh man, Gramps. Are you giving me a legendary?! I mean I know I'm totally worthy of one, but—"

Oak grimaced at his grandson's delusions. "What? No, I only hand those out to cute girls named Mary Sue. I just had to lock these up after too many die hard fans bitched on 4chan about how we were ruining the series."

"Aww man. Don't get my hopes up like that, Gramps..."

"Since when do gardevoir have breasts?" Oak and his grandson interrupted their conversation to look over at Aero, who was still busy staring at the aide's computer monitor trying to understand how gardevoir boobs would even work out.

"Huh?" they both said in unison.

Oak's aide dropped his mop in a hurry, dashed over to his computer, and proceeded to close out everything on his desktop in a panic. "IT'S JUST RESEARCH, I SWEAR!"

"Uh-huh...well, I guess I did tell you to go watch porn or something, so I suppose I can't really complain when you actually listen to me."

"Umm...actually, I'm serious," Oak's aide responded sheepishly. "I've been working on a prototype for an energy generator that uses digital pornographic artwork of pokémon as a fuel source for the past six months now..."

"Wait? For real? You have a prototype and everything?" Oak's aide just nodded silently in response. "Why didn't you tell me you were working on something like that earlier? That's one hell of a scientific breakthrough!"

"I did...I mean I tried to. Multiple times, actually. It's just every time I've tried, you've been busy yelling at Greg for being a public nuisance."

"Oh...okay, that makes sense. Well, carry on then. I'll take a proper look at it after I finish kicking Greg out of the house."

"Hey, what?!" Greg exclaimed.

Oak turned to his grandson. "You're going on an adventure, remember?"

"Oh yeah...I get to come back home after I'm done though, right?"

"Uhhhhhhhh..." Oak looked down at the pokéballs still in his hands. "SO AS I WAS SAYING, these two pokémon are kind of volatile and I wasn't planning on handing them over to anyone, but I don't have much of a choice at the moment."

Aero was slouched against the wall with their hands jammed into their jean pockets. "Am I going to hate this?"

Oak waved the question away, but it looked kind of dumb because his hands were still holding something. "Oh don't worry, it's not that bad really. I used to hand pokémon like these out regularly, but after a certain...incident...I decided it for the best that I avoided doing so until the internet forgot about it for awhile."

"You're not really instilling much confidence here, but okay..."

"I said don't worry about it. I'm the one that has to deal with the review bombing anyway." Oak raised the capsule in his left hand. "So this pokéball has a pikachu in it," Next he raised the capsule in his right hand. "and this pokéball has an eevee in it."

"Cool! I call dibs on the eev_—_ "

"NO! Um, I mean no, Greg. I already decided that you're getting the pikachu. I'm giving Aero the eevee." Oak checked with Aero, who still didn't seem to care that much either way.

"What? Why? That's so lame, I wanted to choo_—_ OH! I get it! You want to make sure I get the superior pokémon_, _right?_"_

"...Yeah, sure. Whatever. Now take the fuckin' pikachu."

Oak handed Greg the pokéball with the pikachu in it, and Greg took it with pride before doing another dumb-ass pose with it. "You're the best, Gramps! I knew you'd be able to realize my true potential!"

"Yes, I realized it a long time ago when you managed to get your hand stuck in a shellder..." Oak held the remaining ball out for Aero, but grabbed them by the shoulder and leaned in to whisper something when they reached in. "Actually, this eevee is female, and that doesn't happen very often. I just didn't want to leave a pokémon so valuable in the hands of someone who can't stop talking about how great they are for more than five microseconds at a time."

"Yeah, I kinda gathered that already. I'm not so sure that I'm a much better option though."

"Not even close, but if I have to choose..."

Aero fiddled with the ball in their hands. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Oak returned to his neutral standing position. "No problem. All that's left now is to give you two a crash course in batt—"

"That's right, don't think I forgot!" Greg ran into the middle of the room and whipped around. "You're not getting out of our battle so easily!" He flung his newly gifted pokéball outward. "GOOOOOO PIKACHU!"

"Fucks sake, Greg! I'm going to need a tranquilizer after today…"

The ball hit the ground, but instead of falling apart like last time, it just opened normally and emitted some special effects lighting before spitting out a yellow mouse and then returned to Greg's hand via wibbly wobbly physics magic that nobody actually wants to explain. I guess the alternative would be to make it realistic and have everyone scramble around collecting their balls afterwards, but then I'd have to write about it every time someone decides to fight each other. Nobody wants that.

The pikachu, having been released from it's spherical prison, immediately started looking around the room before finding the eyes of it's new trainer and uttering a single "Pika..." because what the fuck else did you expect a pikachu to say. Look I'm sorry, but it's not just going to come out of the ball and start reciting hamlet in perfect Shakespearean English or something. You're just going to have to accept that.

Greg started punching the air. "Aw yeah! So cool! We're the best!"

Oak took a deep breath to calm himself. "Alright...alright, fine. I suppose a practical lesson won't hurt...well okay, it might hurt Greg's ego a little, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

Greg pointed across the room at Aero. "Pikachu, use Growl!"

His pikachu gave him a weird look, but then turned around and made pikachu noises at Aero. It was very impressive.

"WOO! TAKE THAT!"

Oak held his head in his hands. "Greg, Aero hasn't even released their pokémon yet."

"What? Oh, um...yeah...yeah! Of course, I knew that! I was just uh...being intimidating! Intimidation! It's my strategy!"

Aero was still slouched against the wall. "Yes, I'm very intimidated now. I should have known better than to challenge the mighty Greg Oak. There's absolutely no way I can possibly win now."

"HAH!"

"Aero, please. Don't give him a bigger head than he already has...it's already bigger than it has any right to be. Besides, if you do lose, I'm taking that eevee back, selling it on the internet, and then sending you back home to be ten years old for the rest of your life."

"What? NO!" Aero sprung up off the wall with a passionate spark ignited in their eyes. Or there would have been a passionate spark ignited in their eyes if this was an anime, but it isn't so that would be stupid. You're allowed to pretend though if you want. I won't judge you for it (actually I will). "Sorry, Greg, but I can't afford to lose now. Not with the entire rest of my life at stake."

Aero released their new pokémon from it's torture chamber pokéball, although not quite as dramatically as Greg. After being freed, the eevee sat at Aero's feet looking up with a sunny smile on it's face. "Voiiii!"

Aero turned to address Oak briefly. "Why does it sound like it's trying to pronounce 'eevee' while having a stroke?"

"I'm afraid that's a mystery even a pokémon professor can't answer..."

"Oh well." Aero bent down to the floor. The eevee was still staring at them expectantly. "Okay, hi. This is pretty sudden, and I know we just met, but there's a pikachu standing over there and I need you to beat the stuffing out of it for me."

"Evoiii..."

"Don't give me any shit. It's important."

"Voi..."

"Look, my hands are tied here. If you don't do it, the old guy over there is going to sell you on craigslist to some furry pedophile who will make you shit in diapers for their amusement for the rest of your life."

The eevee immediately turned around and eyed up it's competition, ready and willing to do whatever it would take to win.

"So uh, what can this thing do?"

"Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn't just know. Let me see..." Oak rubbed his chin in true Oak fashion. "Well, there's Tackle."

"That's it?"

"I guess it probably knows Tail Whip...Don't use that thou— "

Aero turned back to the battle. "Okay, do that. Tail Whip."

Aero's eevee waggled her tail at the opposing pikachu. It was very adorable.

"I told you not to use that."

"Yeah."

"So you used it."

"I'm nineteen."

"...Oh. You'd think I'd understand teenage rebellion by now. I mean, you're technically ten, but I see your point."

"That was pretty good, but I'm still better!" Greg pointed dramatically for the...I lost count. "Pikachu, Growl again!"

The pikachu made more pikachu noises. You could argue that it was vaguely more impressive than last time just due to the fact that there was a valid target this time.

"Okay, Tail Whip."

The eevee waggled her tail again. Still adorable. Not any more or less adorable than last time, but adorable just the same.

"Growl!"

"Tail Whip."

"Growl!"

"Tail Whip."

"Growl!"

"Tail Whip."

Oak beat his head into the wall.

"Growl!"

"Tail Whip."

"Growl!"

"Tail Whip."

"We're winning! Use Growl again!"

Instead of complying with it's master, the pikachu did something else. It walked up closer to Aero's eevee with a dorky anime blush on it's face. This still isn't an anime though, so I'll have to have words with the author after this...oh wait that's me, damn it.

"Pika pika pi…pika pika"—__This is kind of weird to say in the middle of battle, but your tail wagging is like...really cute and stuff.__

"Voiiii. Evoiiivoi."—__Aw, thanks, that's sweet. Your growling is totally super intimidating too.__

"Pi?! Pikapi! Pikapikapi...pi...pikapika pika pi?"—__Really?! ____That's great! We're like in the same egg group too...so...you wanna go grab a coffee or something?__

"Voi….Evoiii...voivoii." —_S___orry...I only like you as a friend…besides, we just met.__

Friend zoned. It was super effective!

After the pikachu's heart shattered into a million pieces in slow motion, it laid down on the floor defeated, too depressed to continue the battle.

"What?!" Greg screamed. "That's cheating! Gramps, this has to be against the rules, right? Right?!"

Oak stopped beating his head against the wall to find that the battle ended somehow, and in Aero's favor to boot. "Oh...uh, I wasn't paying attention. But all's fair in love and war, or so they say. Why? What did I miss?"

"Love and war," replied Aero.

"Huh. Well I guess by that logic, Aero's victory is doubly legitimate then."

"I don't really feel like I did anything though..."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" On the verge of tears, Greg snatched his fallen pikachu up into his arms and cradled it against his chest before storming to the front door. "I refuse to accept a victory like that! What kind of monster breaks a poor pikachu's heart like it's nothing?! I'm going to become the best trainer the world has ever seen, and then I'm going to get revenge! Just you wait!" Greg threw open the door to the lab. "Smell ya later...FAGGOT!" And then ran off as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Oak shook his fist angrily. "You just had to—you fuckin'— GET YOUR GODDAMN ASS BACK HERE BOY!" He ran after Greg, determined to lay the ultimate smack-down on his grandson.

Aero looked down at their newfound companion. "Yo. Let's blow this joint before they get back. Where'd that pokéball get to?"

While Aero was looking around for the missing pokéball, the eevee climbed up their pant leg and jacket and lept onto their head. The eevee stuck it's paw outward. "Evoiii!"

"Oooo-kay, whatever. Guess that works..." Aero headed out of the lab and walked down the street with an eevee on their head. "Hey, if you shit on me, I'm sticking you in a blender."

"Voi."

"Just so we understand each other."

* * *

Oak's aide sat at his desk and jammed printouts of furry porn into what looked to be the worlds dumbest looking toaster, aside from the strange humming it was giving off. He finally let out a sigh of relief after he was alone for the first time all morning. "Now maybe I can finally get some work done on this thing."


	5. Chapter 4

**Yeah, I don't write often. Next chapter will probably take forever too, because I'll be too busy playing animal crossing when I have free time instead of drinking alcohol and shitposting on fanfiction websites. Sorry, fam.  
**

**Not that I ever needed an excuse before now.**

* * *

**CH04 – Titling chapters in the story itself looks kinda weird**

Aero walked down a dirt road, past a shoddy wooden sign with ROUTE 1 painted on it in messy, red strokes. Every now and then, they had to weave through large patches of obnoxiously unkempt field grass that decided to grow right over the path, because nature doesn't give a shit like that. Their eevee companion, currently riding along on their head, bounced up and down with every step. "So I guess I should probably give you a name or something, huh?"

"Evoiivoi!" The eevee seemed to find the notion of being given an actual name a good idea, though Aero didn't particularly if it did or not, and just didn't want to refer to the thing riding around on his head as 'the thing' for however long it took for them to achieve legal adulthood again.

"How about Eevee? Then I can't be criticized by people with too much free time for capitalizing it."

"Voi." Rejected.

"What if I named you Pikachu instead?" The eevee smacked Aero over the head (which is pretty easy to do when your entire body is already over it) with a foreleg in response. "Ow! I was just kidding, don't get upset...how about Amy?"

"Voi."

" Mary?"

"Voi."

"Linda." A wild rattata leapt out of a patch of tall grass, but Aero just kicked it out of the way without thinking about it. It rebounded off of a pidgey, laying them both out on the side of the road. Unfortunately for Aero, this isn't an RPG where human beings are allowed to accumulate experience points, so the exp just vanished into the ether like it never existed.

"Voi."

"You're pretty picky, y'know that? How about Rebecca?"

"Voiii."

"Um...Ronald?" The eevee just smacked Aero again, causing them to wince. "Well, I don't know. You're turning down all the female names, I figured it was worth a shot."

Just then, the world's most generic cell phone ringtone sounded off loudly, albeit somewhat muffled. "Hold on, that's my phone." Aero instinctively reached for the phone wedged in their pocket. It was an old-fashioned flip phone that was completely devoid of any modern features. It sent and received calls, and kept the time, and that was pretty much it. "This better not be Mom, I only just left..." Aero flipped the phone open and held it to their ear without even checking the number. "Hello?"

"...Hello..." The idiosyncratic, feminine voice made Aero recoil instinctively.

"Oh what the hell. The fuck do you want?!"

"Ahaha Your father wanted to...know how you were doing~"

"Tell him to ask me himself."

"He's...tied up right now..."

"Yeah? Doing what? Something stupid, I'm guessing."

"Hm...Hahaha...we'll change the world, you'll see. We're gonna revive Groudon~"

"Wow. Great. Okay. Cool. Tell my dad he's a fuckin' idiot for me, thanks."

"Ahahahaha~"

"You're a fuckin' idiot too. I hope you guys get your asses handed to you by a twelve year old."

"..." The person on the other end went silent.

"...What? Did I strike a nerve?"

"..."

"Did you actually get your ass handed to you by a twelve year old?"

"..."

"Is that why dad is busy right now?"

"..."

Aero busted up laughing into the phone. A moment later there was a click as the call disconnected. "Hahaha...oh she hung up on me." Aero blocked her number, before jamming the phone back into their pocket. "Crazy bitch...like we need any more people spamming Precipice Blades on showdown."

After stuffing the phone away, Aero began to feel their eevee companion prodding the top of their head in a vie for attention. "Evvoiii." Aero glanced upward to see it pointing down the road with it's foreleg. Following the paw, Aero refocused their sight to the path in front of them and spotted a young man in some kind of stupid demeaning uniform commonplace in the service industry as a method of depersoning employees by making them all look exactly the same, and helping them to come to terms with their place as a cog in the machine that shouldn't be allowed to posses any sort of individuality whatsoever, since that scares middle management, since they're all very insecure about their own inability to have any sort of backbone when it comes to dealing with their own bosses. He was hanging out by the side of the road, waving some kind of stupid, eye-catching sign like a political activist pretending to peacefully protest while simultaneously looking for a non-reason to beat you over the head with a brick. A nondescript wooden crate was next to him on the ground. That doesn't give me anything to rag over though, so it's barely worth mentioning outside of the fact that it's probably a vaguely relevant object involved in whatever is going to happen next.

"Hm? What's this guy doin'? Doesn't seem like a protest. There's only one person, and he doesn't look nearly insincere enough." Aero decided to approach the man, and upon getting closer realized that the sign was for some kind of pokémart advertisement. They waved halfheartedly at the guy. "Yo."

"Hello!" The young man gave Aero a forced service industry smile. You know the one. "I'm an employee of the pokémart in Viridian City. You're a new, aspiring pokémon trainer, right?"

"Close enough."

The man looked at the pokémon riding on Aero's head. "That's a cute eevee; Don't see those around too often. What's it's name?"

"Dunno," Aero shrugged.

"Huh?"

"We didn't get that far yet. Still spitballing."

"Hmm..."The pokémart employee thought to himself for a moment. "What about Ronald?" Aero's eevee jumped into the air like rocket into a parabolic trajectory and headbutted the employee. Well, I mean technically it was just a Tackle, because it doesn't know Headbutt, but without gameplay elements backing it, the moves are basically the same thing at the end of the day. "Oof!" He clutched his head in pain, as the eevee climbed back up to it's perch.

"It's a female," Aero stated plainly.

"So?"

"...I tried Ronald already."

"Oh. Well, I got nothin' then, sorry..." The pokémart employee bent down slightly and reached for a small bottle from inside the crate by his feet, which was apparently full . "Well, I got nothin' other than this, anyway. Here you go." He handed the bottle over to Aero. Aero examined the bottle closely. It had a spray nozzle and was full of some sort of bright red liquid sloshing around inside. The man noticed Aero's apparent confusion and followed up with an explanation. "It's medicine for pokémon. A free sampling for new trainers of the potions we stock at the mart in Viridian."

Aero eyed the bottle suspiciously. "...Potion? That's a pretty shady name for something that's supposed to be modern medicine, isn't it?"

"It can heal your pokémon's wounds if there's no pokémon center nearby to use. A very useful asset for a trainer like yourself."

Aero wasn't buying it. "...Why does it look like antifreeze?" Aero unscrewed the nozzle and brought the bottle up to their nose.

"I don't know, that's just the color it is, but it's—

"Smells dangerous." Aero screwed the nozzle back on.

"—Look, it works just fine, otherwise we wouldn't sell it," The employee was starting to get exasperated, "you can try it out right now if you don't believe it. Just spray it on your pokémon's wounds and they'll heal up in an instant."

"...Does it work on humans?"

"Um...well, no. You should definitely not use it on humans, and if you get any on your skin while appying it, you should wash it off right away."

"Okay, guess I'll give it a go, then." Aero pointed the bottle at the pokémart employee and sprayed a healthy dose of the stuff directly into his face.

"AUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUAAAAHHHHHH!" The man immediately collapsed to the ground covering his face, screaming in agony. "WHHHHHAAAAAATTHEFUCKKKKISWRONGWITHYOUUUUUUUU?! AHHHHHHHHH!"

"Hey, you're right, doesn't work on humans at all. Go figure." Aero dropped the bottle on the ground before continuing down the road nonchalantly, as the man continued to scream while shriveled up on the side of the road.

Aero's eevee watched the suffering man attempt to crawl to his knees. The flesh on his face was already starting to bubble and dissolve away, but it didn't make him any less quiet. "Evoiivoivoi..."

"Eh, don't worry about it, I'm sure he'll be fine. They apparently sell it in stores publicly, so it can't be that dangerous, right?"

Eventually the man's screams began to die out, as Aero put distance between them, and his face had completely burned down to the skull.

"He sure was loud though. Man, what a baby."

"Evoii..."

"Anyway, did you think of a good name yet?"

"Voi."

"How about Violet?"

"Voi."

"How about Violett?"

"Voivoi!"

"No, it's not the same. There's an extra T."

"Voiii."

"Yeah, well I don't see you coming up with anything. If you can't figure out what you want to be called, how the hell am I supposed to do it?" Aero spied another sign coming up along the road that said WELCOME TO VIRIDIAN CITY. "Oh, we're here already. Not sure why the old geezer was so worried about wild pokémon...I didn't even see any...Guess we'll put the name thing on hold for a little longer then..."

"Evoiivoivoivoi!"

"Okay, well Ronald is still on the table if you change your mind."

The eevee reached down and bopped Aero's nose. "Ow."


End file.
